Block #17 - Lorrach

After I dropped Nick at the airport in Paris, I caught an early morning train out to Germany to visit with some friends, Ellie and Annie, for the weekend before I headed on the Munich for a couple weeks. They were staying in Lṏrrach, a little town in Germany a stone's throw away from Switzerland. I met them in Basel, and the three of us headed on to Lṏrrach from there after putting our feet in the Rhine River to cool off for a bit. On the way back to the train station I took this picture of a shirt sleeve, just to keep track of things that might be interesting to work in to patterns.


Back in Lṏrrach, we visited a castle that sits up on top of a mountain nearby, and by on top, I mean on top. We drove most of the way up to the castle, and still had to walk what felt like straight up to make it to the castle, then up another several flights of stairs to get to the top of the tower from which this photo was taken.


Another view that I feel like was worth the hike, though. I saw this railing as we were driving around and felt the need to document it.


Sorry about the quality of the picture; it was taken from the backseat of the car, through the front windshield, as we were driving past. Not the best conditions for clarity.

The Saturday night that I was in Lṏrrach was the loser's bracket game for the World Cup, by which I mean the game played by the losers of the semifinal games. Germany was playing Uruguay, and to properly watch the game we took ourselves off to the restaurant Ellie and Annie are working at to watch on a big screen they had set up in their patio area. Now, I'm not sure how familiar you are with the World Cup, but this year the big deal noisemakers were the vuvuzelas, pretty much a long plastic tube flared at one end. I had only ever heard them on through the TV, but I had the exciting opportunity to see one up close and personal at the game, and I just had to take a picture.


Now, I did ask this kid – in German – if I could take his picture before I took it, and he did consent, but he looked at me like I had completely lost my mind the entire time, and I noticed later that he was pointing back at me and telling his mom what had happened. Luckily I didn't get into any kind of trouble for it. I think mostly he was just bemused by the whole thing.

To round out my pattern finding, here's the surface of one of the tables at the restaurant, that we were actually using as stools at the time.


I think the point I want to make with this post is that even though I've spent the last several weeks and huge amount of energy traveling around to collect these pictures of patterns to inspire me to come up with quilt designs, it's something that you can do wherever you are. Just look around you, especially at floors and ceilings, places you wouldn't normally think to look. Those are generally the best places for finding things that are simple enough for most anyone to convert it into a design, yet decorative enough and interesting enough to make it worth your while.

Finally, on to two weeks of language practice in Munich! Bis später!